Armageddon?? (86 page)

“Given
the size of the holes the LEO community have taken to blowing in the alleged
perpetrators, I think that’s a reasonable assumption.” There was a brief spasm
of amusement at the sally from FBI Director Robert Mueller. “One thing about
these lava attacks, we don’t get much looting, people are too busy running to
think about getting a free television. Most of them anyway. And the draft is
sweeping most of the candidates for street criminals out of the way into the
forces where the Sergeants are straightening them out. Law and order isn’t
really a problem, you’d be surprised how rarely it is in a really major
disaster. How long it will stay that way is another matter, one or two more
attacks like this and we’ll have mass panic on our hands. That’ll do more
damage to our industrial production than the attacks themselves.”

"Which
brings us to the why? Neither Detroit nor Sheffield were really important
production centers, so why Detroit? Have the analysts worked out the enemy's
strategy?"

"Only
the obvious so far, Mr President.” Secretary Warner took a deep breath.
“Sheffield and Detroit were both industrial powerhouses until quite recently,
very recently in Baldrick terms. Remember, to them, centuries are a short
period. My guess is, this 'Belial' has worked out that our military strength
relies on our industrial base, but his intel is stale and his targeteering is
lousy. Make no mistake though, he hit us hard this time around, this is the
worst blow we've taken since this whole business started. We don't want to give
him a chance to refine his aim."

“Then
we have to kill him at source. Now. Prime Minister Brown was right, we can’t
just let this pass. Hell has to hurt for this and hurt badly. We lost under
four thousand people in 9/11 and we took two countries down by way of
retaliation. Now you say we’re going to lose upwards of 25 times that number.”
Bush’s jaw set. “They’re going to have to pay, the American people demand it.
Tell me what we’ve got and how we’re going to use it. The answer ‘nothing’
won’t be accepted.”

“Sir,
we have several plans in motion. We have a path-finder of our own on the way up
to Tartarus, he’s expected there in 24 to 36 hours. Once he’s in place, we can
portal a deceased special forces team to his location and they’ll position
navigation beacons to home a B-1 strike in. They’d devastate the area. As a
back-up we have a British special forces group ready to go in. If the B-1s
can’t do the strike, they’ll do a ground raid. We have a B-1 searching for Tartarus
as well, if our pathfinder can’t get through, she’ll find Tartarus, eventually.
We have time Sir, we believe that it will be a week or more before Belial
manages to get set up for a third strike. One of our options will be in place
by then.”

“Not
good enough, what do we do now?” Bush’s voice was dogmatic and a little
petulant.

“We
can hit Dis with an air strike, the B-1s won’t be able to hit Tartarus for
days, we can let them loose on Dis. With conventional bombs of course. We have
a nuclear strike plan, we can adapt it for a conventional bombing strike.
That’s about our only serious option right now.

“In
the meantime, we have to think about limiting the disaster we have in hand. We
have a couple of options there. We have a prototype device that is designed
specifically to close portals. This prototype is too large to be carried by an
existing bomber but we do have a different alternative. We have old C-54s we’ve
pulled from the boneyard and we can refit one to carry that prototype device.
The original plan was to use a Britannia and target the Sheffield portal but
that’s run a long way out of steam now, the vulcanologist believes it’ll run
dry in a day or less. We can test out our new device in Detroit instead.”

“There’s
another thing we can do.” Doctor Surlethe’s voice was clinical. “We can deprive
the baldricks of their own navigation beacons. I propose we test the entire
population for the Nephilim genetic ancestry and quarantine those carrying it
in isolation camps until the war is over.”

There
was another stir in the room, this time of anger. In one corner, Karl Rove
leaned back in relief, somebody else had made a political error of grade one
levels. Secretary Kempthorne was the one who took up the cudgels though. “And
we know what to look for do we?”

“Well,
we will, after some investigations.”

“And
then you propose to place people in indefinite confinement without them having
committed an offense on the vague off-chance that a baldrick might use one of
them?”

“Better
that than an incinerated city.”

“Even
though we already know that wearing tinfoil hats offers complete protection
against mind entanglement?”

“But
there are a few people out there who won’t. There are always eccentrics who
deny that the tinfoil hat is absolutely essential to prevent baldricks taking
over their minds.”

“And
you want to indefinitely jail an unknown number of people, possibly millions,
because one or two might refuse to wear their hats?”

“Well…
Put like that…..”

“And
that’s how it will be put ladies, gentlemen, Karl.” Rove winced, he hadn’t been
forgiven after all. “We will make it a legal requirement to wear a tinfoil hat
and enforce it. But there will be no mass detentions. We did that in 1941 and
the stain is with us still. Thank you, we will have another meeting in six
hours time when we can get some of the rest of the world in with us. Karl, Dr
Surlethe, I wish to speak with you two privately.”

Chapter
Sixty

Indian
Air Force Jaguar-IS “JM-414” Over the Southern Front, Phlegethon River Bulge

Statistically
(as confirmed by the Federal Aviation Administration) 80 percent of cockpit
voice flight records recovered after aircraft crashes, end with the words ‘Oh
Shit.’ The speaker may have been the pilot or the co-pilot (or, it is rumored,
in some cases the aircraft itself although this possibility is denied, derided
and generally rejected) but the ultimate words remain the same. So, Flight
Lieutenant Aniruddha Mehta’s exclamation when a wyvern came out of nowhere and
removed his Jaguar’s entire vertical fin and rudder assembly was entirely in
accordance with tradition. It was no consolation when the Wyvern almost
thereafter immediately had a terminal encounter with a U.S. Navy F-18E and gone
down after taking two hits from AIR-120 rockets and a burst of 20mm cannon
fire. The fact was that JM-414 was going into a flat spin and there was nothing
Mehta could do about it.

Mehta
hadn’t seen anything like the creature before, not outside mythology and
fantasy art. It was a huge flying creature two legs, one pair of wings and
small steering fins on the lower tail and upper neck. Mehta estimated is size
as roughly 12 meters long and its wingspan around 40 meters. It had been fast,
it had dived on him in a collision course with an approach speed of around 400
knots. As it had passed it had taken a swing at his aircraft with the great
spiked ball on the tip of its tail, a ball covered in strong scales. It had
totally wiped out his fin and that had killed JM-414 as surely as a missile
hit. He looked downwards, he was over the battle area but whether he was on the
baldrick or human side was another matter. On the other hand, he had no real options
in the matter, JM-414 was uncontrollable, going into a flat spin and would soon
break up. His only choices were to eject or ride the aircraft in. He opted for
the former and felt the slam in his back as the ejection rocket blasted him
through the disintegrating canopy of his aircraft.

U.S.
Navy F/A-18E “Eagle One” Over the Southern Front, Phlegethon River Bulge

The
Indian pilot was out of his stricken aircraft, that was one good thing. What
would happen on the way down and when he reached the ground was quite another.
Lieutenant Commander Michael Wong really didn’t have time to worry about him.
The sky was full of flying things, harpies, a wide variety of human aircraft
and now these wretched giants that had appeared out of nowhere. They were about
the same size as the Greater Heralds he had killed right at the start of the
Salvation War and which were now proudly represented by the two great red kill
marks under his cockpit.

“Eagle
One to Regent. New sighting, big creature, looks a bit like a traditional
dragon. One just took out an Indy Jaguar. Pilot’s out, call in CAESAR for a
pick-up,”

“Very
good Eagle One, for your information, new sighting is a Wyvern. They’re
reported to be hitting the ground troops hard. Report status.”

“All
AIM-120s gone. Two AIR-120s left, cannon and fuel low. The sky’s full of shit
out here. Target rich environment.”

“Well
say goodbye to it Eagle Flight. Return to Earth-Yankee base for refuel and
rearm. Also for your information, the O-club is open there.”

That
was a step in the right direction Wong thought. The tempo of flight operations
precluded a beer but even soda would cut through the dust of Hell that seemed
to get everywhere. His squadron was lucky, after being detached from Ronaldus
Magnus they’d been assigned to one of the satellite air bases that surrounded
the Hellmouth. What it must be like for the air crews, mostly A-10 and Su-25
drivers, who were based in Hell was difficult to contemplate.

Wong
swerved his aircraft around and took aim at a harpy that was coming dangerously
close. He lead it a little bit, squeezed the button and saw one of his
remaining AIR-120s streak across the sky towards the bird-like creature. It saw
the rocket and tried to evade but it was too late and the harpy vanished in the
explosion that was part rocket and part its own body chemistry. “Formate on me
Eagle Flight, we’re outta here.”

The
navigation beacon was dead ahead, closing fast. “Eagle Flight to Regent, we’re
closing on the portal now.”

“We
have you Eagle Flight, you’re clear to transit. Hand over to Yankee once you’re
though.” That was lucky, the amount of traffic through the portal could mean
aircraft stacking up for hours. That was a disturbing thought, the whole human
war effort in hell was being funneled through a bottleneck that was 1,800 feet
wide and 1,200 feet high. If it closed now, the whole lot would be cut off.
Then there was the quiet, undramatic switch from the red murk of Hell to the
clear blue skies of Earth. Wong felt the engines surge in power as the filter vanes
in the intakes rotated to clear the airflow.

“Yankee
control here, Eagle Flight, you’re clear to land. Turn to oh-eight fiver and
come straight in on runway 85.” Wong swung the F-18 to the bearing and saw the
comforting rectangle of the new concrete strip up ahead. Something the Russian
pilots, flying birds with undercarriages that looked like they could handle
landing on a plowed field made fun of. Landing was proving an interesting
experience, the modern aircraft were OK but the old birds brought out of store,
or the boneyards, were a different matter. Pilots used to F-16s and F-18s were
having a hard time adapting to the ‘hot and heavy’ characteristics of the old
types. Wong wondered how Ronaldus Magnus was getting on with her older
aircraft.

The
runway was approaching fast now, Wong made minute adjustments to line himself
up and cut power back so his aircraft drifted down in to the concrete. A
different feeling entirely from the spine-crunching ‘controlled crash’ of a
carrier landing. Over on the parking strip, Wong saw that a group of F-4s and
A-7s had arrived. Rhinos and SLUFs, this war was getting more like a time
machine every day. His F-18 stopped rolling and he added a touch of power to
taxi off the runway on to the parking strip.

The
debriefing hut was still a temporary structure, little more than a tent. Wong
went inside and sighed to himself. One of the other F-18 pilots, a Lieutenant
George Witz, was standing over the officer behind an interview desk. One of the
problems with the mobilization was that it was calling back the bad as well as
the good. Witz was one of the bad, Wong believed that first time around he’d
probably resigned rather than be eased out. Now, he was cursing steadily,
damning his aircraft, his missiles, the ground control. The AIR-120 was his
present target and his denunciation of the unguided rocket was colorful even by
fighter pilot standards. Wong sighed and went up to the first vacant desk. The
officer behind it smiled at him, she already had his camera gun “film” up on
her laptop. There was a lot to be said for digitization.

“Right
Mike, we got you down for 14 harpies and a wyvern. Four AIM-120 kills, two gun
kills and eight AIR-120 hits on the harpies, two AIR-120s and gunfire into the
Wyvern. That square with what you remember.”

“Sure
does ma’am.” In fact, Wong could have sworn he got two more harpies with
gunfire than he was being allocated but in the wild furball that was going on
in Hell, who could really say what was what?

“Bullshit.”

“I’m
sorry?” The intelligence officer’s voice had gone cold. If she’d been the
speaker’s wife, the victim would shortly be due for the ‘we’ve got to talk’
treatment followed by long nights sleeping on the couch.

“I
call Bullshit. Nobody’s getting eight kills with those bits of crap. Somebody’s
faking their claims.”

The
AFIO was about to blister Witz’s ears when Wong cut in ahead of her. “You have
a problem with the AIR-120?”